


The 40 mg Job

by norah



Category: Leverage
Genre: CoC, Multi, OT3, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-19
Updated: 2009-09-19
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norah/pseuds/norah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parker takes the Second Act Rehabilitation Center therapist's advice seriously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The 40 mg Job

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to stewardess, Travis, brown_betty, and anatsuno for beta help, and to misspamela for title audiencing. For pyroblaze18 as part of leveragexchange.

"I know, right?" Eliot grinned at Parker. "And then he jumps, but he's been so busy making sure he had the goods, that he forgets about—"

"The counterweight, oh my God!" Parker slapped the conference room table, devolving into another fit of giggles. She made a little "shwippp" like something moving very fast on a cable and then a cartoony "splat."

"Exactly!" Eliot said triumphantly, and Parker snickered.

Alec frowned, adding another element to his latest presentation without even looking down at the laptop. It had been a week since they'd busted Parker out of the rehab center and whatever those happy pills were, they weren't really wearing off like Nate said. Well, sort of - she'd stopped most of the really weird stuff by now, like the constant eye contact and inviting him and Eliot to "express their feelings," but she was…looser, somehow. More comfortable with them.

Alec looked over again, and sure enough, she had her hand on Eliot's shoulder as she levered herself up from her chair. The old Parker never touched anyone. What the hell drugs had they had her on, anyway? Idly curious, he brought up a command-line interface and hacked into the center's records. One firewall between them and any nosey-parker with phone-line and a solar calculator. Just sad, that's what that was. Pathetic security, for someplace that was holding people's medical data. He shored up their system a little in a separate window, absently, while he scanned the records to find Parker's.

Paxil, 40 mg. Standard enough, but more interesting, she had recently been prescribed refills from the same clinic. Two days ago, according to the records. Alec typed furiously, tracking the records to the pharmacy where they'd been sent. And, apparently, picked up and paid for by Rose Gulles, Parker's alias for that job.

Huh.

Alec watched her carefully after that. Not just when she was in the room – though that, too; Parker wasn't exactly hard to look at. He tracked her various identities, watched her purchases, her movements, monitored her records. But nothing else seemed to have changed.

Parker continued to be more at ease, more comfortable with touching the whole team. Sometimes after she hugged you or bumped your hip you'd find you were missing your wallet or your watch, but she always gave stuff back now once she realized she had it. Even if the wallet had credit cards in it. Even if it had _cash_.

She jumped out a window to land on top of Eliot during a job, too, but that wasn't actually that unusual for Parker. Otherwise, she did her job, picked up her prescriptions regularly, attended a bunch of gymnastics and advanced martial arts courses under various aliases, ran up an impressive tab at the Chinese restaurant near her apartment, and spent the occasional evening hanging out with the team. Well, part of the team, anyway. Nate spent his nights drinking, and God only knew what Sophie got up to in her spare time.

Whatever. She seemed okay, that was the point.

And it was kind of nice, having this new, more friendly Parker around. Alec watched her slump against the pillows of his couch, hugging the popcorn and ignoring his earnest attempts to explain to Eliot why the original cut of _Blade Runner_ was so much better than the so-called "director's cut."

They'd just watched both of them, and Eliot, in Alec's opinion, had totally missed the point.

Parker stopped chasing the last few kernels of popcorn around in the bowl. "Guys," she said.

"That's bullshit, because Harrison Ford's narration totally makes it perfect," Alec said, waving his hands emphatically. "It gives it that whole sort of grimy detective-novel noir that – "

"_Guys_."

Alec stopped talking and they both looked at her.

"Do you want to have sex with me?"

Eliot choked on his beer and Alec was so surprised it took him a few seconds before he leapt up and pounded Eliot on the back to help him breathe. Once Eliot had coughed through it and was wiping his streaming eyes, they turned back to Parker and stared, mutely.

"What?" she said, defensive.

"Um." Eliot went into another coughing spasm.

Alec thumped him on the back and said to Parker, "You can't just say shit like that."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing," Alec gestured incoherently between himself and Eliot, "I don't know which of us you were talking to, but you know, you usually wait until the other person is out of the room."

"Oh," Parker said. She looked a little crestfallen.

"Hey, it's okay," Alec said.

"Yeah," Eliot chimed in, recovered from his coughing fit. "I can just head home, and you two can…"

Parker pouted. "You mean I have to choose one of you?"

Eliot put his head in his hands. "I can not believe I am having this conversation," he said to his palms, and then, more clearly, "Look, Parker, it's nothing personal, but I don't shit where I eat."

Parker looked blank, so Alec translated. "What Mister Tactful over here means is that he doesn't have relationships with people he works with."

"Oh, well." Parker brightened, setting the (now empty) popcorn bowl aside. "That's okay, I don't want a relationship."

Eliot said, "I am not nearly drunk enough for this," and knocked back the rest of his beer.

"Is that a yes or a no?" Parker asked.

"No," Eliot said.

"Um," Alec said.

"It's not professional," Eliot said firmly.

Alec vowed to "accidentally" cancel all Eliot's bank and credit cards.

"Why not?" Parker wanted to know.

"It's just not a good idea. People can get weird about sex, and we can't afford to have that mess with a job."

Parker looked bewildered. "Really?"

Alec thought about Nate and Sophie. Whether they were sleeping together or not (and Alec really, really did not want to know if they were) it made both of them a little stupid sometimes. He sighed. "He's right, you know," he said to Parker. "It's not."

Eliot nodded.

"Oh," Parker said. "Okay. Hey, is there any more popcorn?"

And that was that.

Until it came up again, about a week into their mind-numbingly boring stay in Boringsville, USA.

Nate was running the con, Sophie was just starting her job at the bank, and the rest of them were stuck hanging out in Alec's hotel room, which was the only room where the air conditioning really worked. Parker and Eliot were checking over their equipment, and Alec had just managed to cobble together enough of an internet connection to torrent the latest Doctor Who. Slowly.

"I went skydiving last week," Parker announced, buckling herself into her climbing harness and then taking it off again to adjust the fit.

"Oh yeah?" Eliot said.

"Yeah, it's all part of the therapy thing."

"What therapy thing?" Alec asked.

"You know, the whole thing from the Second Act center."

Alec was surprised that she was bringing it up, but Parker's conversation was nothing if not unusual, so he went with it.

"Yeah, I wondered. You've been acting…a little different since then," Alec said.

Eliot snorted. "Yeah, like that time when you totally asked us to fuck you."

Alec hissed "Shut up!" at him, but Eliot shrugged his shoulders philosophically.

"What? She did."

"Are you still seeing a therapist?" Alec asked. He hadn't seen any therapist visits on her records, and he thought he would have noticed.

"No. They charge you money. Just to talk!" Parker was outraged. "But I got some free therapy while I was there for the job, and the pills help me sleep, so." She shrugged.

"And they suggested that you go skydiving?" Alec was skeptical.

"And get laid?" Eliot snickered. Alec glared at him.

Parker made a minute adjustment to one of her straps. "Well, when I was at the center, they said I should try expanding my personal relationships."

"I'm not sure that's what they meant," Eliot said, dryly.

Parker glared at him. "How do you know? And anyway, so I tried it. Alice went out with Peggy, and _she_ said…"

"_You're Alice_," Alec reminded her.

Parker flapped a hand at him. "Whatever. So, Peggy said that if I wanted something, I should ask for it. So I did."

Alec tried to wrap his head around the picture of Parker, talking about relationships with a normal person. _Like_ a normal person. He winced. Somehow, he was pretty sure it hadn't happened like that.

Eliot was stuck on a different part of the conversation. "So wait, you went out with Peggy?" He did that Groucho Marx thing with his eyebrows that made him look like a total perv. "Like, went _out_ with Peggy? Like a lesbian thing?"

"Eliot!" Alec protested, at the same time as Parker said, "Well, I asked, but she said she doesn't like girls like that."

Alec slapped his forehead and groaned. Eliot just looked disappointed and went back to honing the edge on his favorite knife. Alec was pretty sure that if they had to spend another week in this godforsaken shithole of a town, Eliot's knives were going to be ground down to thin slivers by the end of it. He checked his download. Thirty-six percent. He couldn't wait for this job to be over.

Parker was saying, bewildered, "So I asked her why not, and she said some people just don't. I didn't think it would be so complicated."

Eliot snorted. "You got no idea."

"So anyway, then I asked you guys, but you didn't want to either, and I don't know anyone else, except Nate and Sophie." Parker screwed up her face in a grimace.

"Yeah, no," Alec agreed, shuddering.

Parker tugged on a buckle of the harness and coiled the cable into a pouch at her belt. "But it's okay, I went skydiving instead."

"Instead of sex." Eliot's voice was flat.

"Well, the center therapists said I should try new things, too, and you never know when you're going to need aerial access somewhere for a job. I thought maybe I could multitask the whole thing with you guys, but that didn't work out. So." She slipped her hands into the gloves and walked up the wall next to the television, disappearing into the air duct.

"Night!" Her voice echoed back, and there was a muffled thump, then silence.

Alec wrenched his eyes away from the dangling grate and looked at Eliot, who was frozen in place, knife forgotten, staring raptly into space. "Do you think she meant..?"

Eliot snapped out of his reverie and looked back at Alec with wide eyes. "She said, 'try new things.'"

"Like skydiving," Alec said, firmly. Surely that was all she had meant.

"Or sex." Eliot's voice was awed. "That means she's never…holy shit, that's hot."

Alec banged his head on the keyboard. The idea of Parker, naked and blond and awkward and ridiculous, approaching sex with the same kind of mischievous practicality she had when she was figuring out something new on a job, was not just hot, it was fucking _scorching_. He shifted awkwardly and adjusted himself in his jeans, hoping Eliot wouldn't notice.

Eliot didn't notice. Eliot was putting his knives away hastily, saying in a strangled voice, "I just remembered something I gotta do. In my room." He slung his knife bag over his shoulder and walked quickly toward the door. "Uh, g'night!" The door slammed, and he was gone.

Alec looked back at the grate to the air vent, which was still swinging slightly from Parker's exit. He sighed. He looked down at his screen, and saw that the torrent had been paused at thirty-nine percent, probably during his little head-meets-keyboard moment.

"Fuck," he said, starting it up again, and went to take a shower.

Once you know something, you can't un-know it.

In Prague, when Alec had said they were more than a team, he'd meant they were becoming more like a family. But the way he'd been thinking about Parker since that night in the hotel was nothing like fraternal. And he couldn't seem to stop.

Parker, of course, was acting like nothing had happened. And Eliot was stomping around like a bear with a sore nose, but that was pretty normal for Eliot, so who knew.

Alec, on the other hand, was having trouble.

He spent a lot of time over the next few months immersing himself in Warcraft, leveling up all his main character's professions to 450, and then those of a few of his alts. He drove down to ComicCon, collected signatures from Frank Cho, and got Dwayne McDuffie to autograph a copy of _Static #3_ he'd been keeping in mylar. He met a hot chick who was way into Doom Patrol and ran her own tabletop gaming group. She invited him to stay the night in her suite, and he took her up on it.

It was good. Fun. But he didn't call her, after; living a clandestine life of altruistic crime was cool and all, but it kind of got in the way of a normal dating life. He also finished his back reading on his pull list, re-designed the team's GPS detectors until they were so thin he could sandwich one into a business card, and turned a broken Commodore 64 into a working dedicated Infocom game box. Old school, baby.

But when he wasn't actively distracting himself, he couldn't stop thinking about Parker. He jerked off guiltily, at night or sometimes in the shower, imagining what it would have been like if he'd taken her up on that offer.

Eliot and his fucking high-minded "I don't sleep with people I work with" attitude. Alec should have said, "Fuck _that_ noise" and gone for it, but he hadn't, and she'd probably never ask again, now.

God_damn_it.

After the Genogrow job, he decided that was bullshit, though. _Carpe diem_, and all that. When they got back, he was going to kiss her, and see where that went. Alec indulged in a little daydreaming: Parker, full of gratitude for the way he had saved her life, would fall into his arms willingly. It was going to be awesome.

When they got back, it was not like that at all.

Alec walked into the conference room and sat down; Parker and Eliot, who had both been sitting in icy silence, promptly got up and left.

Alec sat there, stunned and hurt, for a single moment, and then stood up, knocking over his chair. He knew better than to think he could find Parker if she didn't want to be found, so he went after Eliot. He caught him in the kitchen. "Hey!"

Eliot spun around.

"What the fuck was that out there?" Alec demanded, gesturing toward the conference room. "I know I was late for the break-in, but I came through for you guys in the end, didn't I?"

Eliot leaned against the counter. He wasn't looking at Alec. "Yeah, you did." He picked at his cuticles. "Uh, thanks."

"So what was all that cold-shoulder shit? I sit down and you and Parker are up and out of there like politicians from a lie detector." Alec sniffed his armpit. "Do I offend?"

Eliot started making coffee, rattling around in the drawers and cupboards. "No, man, it's nothing," he said to the filter, concentrating all his attention on scooping in the grounds.

"Bullshit." Alec crossed his arms. "We got to work together, and I'm not leaving this kitchen until you tell me what crawled up your ass and died."

Eliot stuck the carafe under and hit the switch, then sighed. He leaned on his hands, head hanging down so his hair obscured his face.

"I kissed Parker, okay? I shouldn't have done it, and now it's all weird. It's got nothing to do with you."

Alec felt like someone had punched him in the gut. "Oh," he said. But Eliot was in full confessional mode now, and there was no stopping him.

"I just, that plane came down, and we weren't _dead_, you know, and I was so fucking wired and high on it all, and she was right there, and." He shook his head as if to clear it, and turned around.

"So, like, I don't know what to say to her," he said, spreading his hands. "If the police hadn't started showing up right about then, I swear to God I was about to throw her over one of the bulkheads and fuck her right there."

"Fine," Alec said. "Mister, 'Oh, I don't have relationships with my co-workers, I'm a professional.'" His imitation of Eliot's voice was high and snide.

"Fuck you," Eliot said. "It was stupid, okay? I didn't mean to do it."

"No, fuck you," Alec spat back. He was suddenly angry, nerves buzzing with it. "You're a fucking asshole."

Eliot growled. "It's none of your goddamn business anyway," he said. He moved into Alec's space, chin up, tense, and Alec remembered that Eliot could kick his ass one-handed. He felt reckless.

"Oh yeah? The one day I don't show up to work, and you –"

"You're jealous," Eliot said. He said it softly, but in that way he said things softly when he was threatening people with grievous bodily harm.

"You're crazy," Alec said, loud and angry. "You just –"

"Jealous," Eliot growled, and shoved Alec's chest so hard he stumbled against the fridge. Magnets fell to the floor with a quiet patter. The handle dug into Alec's back.

"I'm _not_," he said, but it came out shaky, unconvincing.

Eliot grunted disbelievingly. He was right up in Alec's face, angry and dangerous, and when he grabbed a fistful of Alec's t-shirt Alec closed his eyes, waiting for the blow to land.

Eliot kissed him.

It was a biting, forceful, pissed-off kiss, but it was a kiss nonetheless, and Alec opened his mouth to protest, but got a mouthful of Eliot's tongue, instead. Eliot kissed him thoroughly, just for a moment, and then bit Alec's lip as he pushed off of his chest, dragging his teeth painfully over the tender skin.

Alec looked down at him, dazed. "Eliot, what –"

"Fuck off," Eliot snarled, and slammed out of the kitchen.

Alec touched his abused lip and his fingers came away wet. He licked them, and tasted copper.

_What. The. Fuck._

Shakily, he pushed away from the fridge and poured himself a cup of coffee.

It soon became apparent that now he had a _real_ problem.

He couldn't stop thinking about Eliot _or_ Parker.

Eliot _and_ Parker.

He was having a minor sexuality crisis on top of a major sexuality renaissance (seriously, he was spending more quality time with his hand than he had since he was thirteen and discovered Internet porn) and it was, to say the least, inconvenient.

As for Parker and Eliot, they seemed mostly to avoid one another, unless the whole group was together. Sometimes they each hung out with Alec, but the other would always make an excuse, so he saw a lot of them separately.

This did not really help him with getting over his stupid crush. Crushes. Whatever.

And then _Parker_ kissed him.

Sure, it was for a job, but she kissed him like she meant it, awkward and enthusiastic, pulling him close. Her lips were soft and quick, on his mouth, his jaw, his neck. Caught by surprise, he did his best to kiss her back.

By the time the security guards got there, he was hard, but she didn't seem to notice. Or care. Nothing, but nothing, compared with the excitement of a challenge for Parker. Alec got that, he did, and it was a pleasure to watch her work. She McGyvered the fuck out of the whole security system in minutes, with that impish look of glee on her face, while Alec followed her and did what she said and babbled incoherently.

And then they had the David. Actually, they'd had both Davids, apparently, however briefly, according to Sterling's goons. Alec wasn't sure what to think about that.

And then, just as fast, they had no Davids. And no headquarters.

And, more importantly, no trust.

Alec could wipe their records from the state law enforcement databases in a night or two, and they could always re-build headquarters, but Alec had seen the way they were all looking at Sophie and he knew it was hopeless. He felt sick, and not just from the blow to the head he'd gotten from Sterling's goons.

He looked up from the screen, not wanting to see the static where moments before there had been a view of the conference room.

"We gotta get you to the hospital," he said to Eliot.

"Yeah," Parker said. "You look like shit."

Eliot bared his teeth. They had blood on them.

It took hours for Eliot to get taped up and bandaged, and Alec spent most of them with his laptop in the van in the hospital parking garage.

Nobody had talked about it yet, what would happen next; they were supposed to meet at the park the next day to discuss it. But Alec knew. Parker was inside with Eliot, playing next of kin, and Alec forced himself not to think about either of them, about Nate or Sophie or anything at all, as he created five sets of birth certificates, histories, years of unexceptional records at banks and schools and hospitals, and family photos. He set up passports and gave them all a ridiculous amount of frequent flier miles; they all had money, but it was the principle of the thing. The familiar process was almost soothing, and he was buried deeply in the records of a Midwest high school, creating "Olga Jorgensen" some transcripts from the 90's, when Parker and Eliot knocked on the van window.

Alec drove them all back to his house without asking. It was the last night, whether they knew it or not, and he wanted to spend it drinking beer and mocking bad action movies with Eliot and Parker. And it seemed like they agreed, because they piled out of the van when it stopped, and Parker helped Alec get the painting of Harland Leverage III out of the back and carry it to the elevator and then into the apartment.

Alec eased the painting away from Parker and leaned it against the wall, patting the gilded frame sadly. He dropped his laptop bag next to it.

"Hey, you guys wanna…" he turned around to say something – he didn't know what – but Parker and Eliot were busy.

Busy kissing.

He must have made a sound or something, some kind of gasp, because Parker opened her eyes and looked over Eliot's shoulder at him. Alec was pretty sure he was just standing there gaping like an idiot, but Parker tapped Eliot's shoulder, and they stopped kissing. Eliot turned around.

Alec said, "You guys...what –"

"C'mon, Alec," Eliot said, and held out his hand.

"But you said –"

"We don't work together anymore."

Parker nodded.

Alec went.


End file.
